Biraderi, Bloc Votes and Bradford: Investigating the Respect Party's Campaign Strategy

Abstract

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Ethnic minorities in British politics: candidate selection and clan politics in the Labour Party

“…3 The majority of politicians who accepted our request to be interviewed were of Pakistani origin and represented the Labour Party either as councillors, Members of Parliament or as party activists. It is for this reason that we focus on the Labour Party, though we want to stress that the use of biraderi mobilisation does not just happen within the Labour Party, as noted in our previous research (Peace and Akhtar 2015) and others such as Dancygier (2017). We also conducted interviews with politicians who were not of Pakistani origin and those representing other parties.…”

“…His selection was described by one observer as a 'coronation' given that the result was never really in doubt. 11 This choice spectacularly backfired as the Bradford West by-election led to a shock result as maverick Respect Party candidate George Galloway was swept to power with a 10,000 strong majority on the back of pledges to clean up Bradford politics (Akhtar, 2012;Peace and Akhtar 2015 The assumption therefore is that by selecting a candidate with strong biraderi credentials, who can guarantee a substantial number of votes, the seat on the council will remain in the hands of the Labour Party. It is worth remembering that such selection decisions are not limited to Labour and instances were also cited from the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party.…”

“…The early anthropological literature on British Pakistanis first highlighted the importance of biraderi structures in the diasporic public sphere (Khan 1976, Shaw 1988, Werbner 1990, Lewis 1994. In Political Science, the importance of biraderi was picked up much later, although there is now an emergent literature on how biraderi networks impact elections (Akhtar 2013, Baston 2013, Heath et al 2013, Electoral Commission 2014, Fisher et al 2014, Peace and Akhtar 2015, Sobolewska et al 2015, Martin 2016, Hill et al 2017. Within public policy discourses, the importance of biraderi in diaspora politics was highlighted in two recent reports.…”

Explaining electoral fraud in an advanced democracy: Fraud vulnerabilities, opportunities and facilitating mechanisms in British elections

“…Party strategies, including pressing for the use of postal votes, have been suggested (Stewart, 2006). Also implicated have been biraderi kinship networks, characteristic of British South Asian communities (Akhtar, 2013;Wilks-Heeg, 2008;Peace and Akhtar, 2015). These networks, led by male elders, provide welfare for their members and were imported through migration from Pakistan and Bangladesh to the United Kingdom (Akhtar, 2013).…”

“…There has been some research, and many allegations, that biraderi networks have both enabled fraud by coercing some members and covered up fraud by intimidating potential witnesses (Akhtar, 2013;Wilks-Heeg, 2008). Some research implicates the role that political parties play in enabling this form of brokerage (Garbaye, 2005;Peace and Akhtar, 2015). We will construct more explicit theoretical links between these two elements, as well as between the third one: opportunity to commit fraud, which is the most studied, but most weakly theorised in the current literature.…”